Rights Violation or a Complete Jerk?

[Xame]

Interesting mix.

The policies of Circuit City form a contract about what you need to do to buy an item. Some of it is implied, some of it is written policy. You need to take the package to the cash register to buy it. You cannot leave money on the floor. etc. etc. In this sence the guy is pretty much fighting a losing battle. He needs to follow the policy to complete his side of the contract. If he refuses, then he can leave and not make a purchase. Its simply his choice. They could ask for your last years taxes if they wanted if they though people would still shop there (see this all the time for large ticket items such as buying property, business contracts etc).

I'll give the store manager some leaway for not explaining the choice to the customer (ie. offering to take the item back if he didn't want to show the bag) and failing to explain that it is the policy of the store if he wishes to do business with a Circuit City that he needed to comply. Who knows, maybe he did and this guy just didn't get it.

Now the interesting part is the police officer. Here the guy wins in spades. Arrested without a crime? Forced to show papers without reasonable suspicion (the Circuit City manager was trained well enough not to make the charge because of the legal concequences). So the officer was not a witness to anything and no one was charging the man. Why the arrest? Why the suspicion? Forced into a booking where the officers supervisors could have tried to make right the situation. And now with a court date without the city attorney trying to beg forgiveness. Asserting legal rights is not grounds for suspicion or guilt.

He might be a fool trying to change Circuit City or any other stores policies. At best he will get them to post the policies more clearly (ie. McD telling me that coffee is hot :rolleyes:). Pressing his claim on the limits of goverment over its people, is a long fight if the city pushes it, but he should win and win big. No arrest without cause and no goverment search without cause. He has a HUGE stack of supreme court cases of very guilty people to pull from where the goverment screwed up a search/arrest. The police officer has no excuse. Let it be a civil matter between the guy and Circuit City. The goverment shouldn't take sides. Circuit City is big enough and has attorneys to deal with this on their own.

I only pray that the goverment will train its police officers as well as Circuit City trains its managers. I predict the city loses and circuit city wins. With a 50/50 record this guy will go off to do this again. More power to you dude. Whatever floats your boat.